The GMO experience in North and South America Greg Traxler

The GMO experience in North and South America 59Argentina (Qaim and de Janvry, 2003) and Mexico (Traxler et al., 2003) suggest thatsmall farmers have had no more difficulty than larger farmers in adopting the newtechnologies.The environmental effects of transgenic crops have been strongly positive to date.In virtually all instances insecticide use on Bt cotton is significantly lower than onconventional varieties and glyphosate has been substituted for more toxic and persistentherbicides in RR soybeans, canola, cotton and maize. Furthermore, an increase in the useof reduced tillage has accompanied RR soybeans and cotton. Negative environmentalconsequences have not been documented in any setting where transgenic crops have beendeployed to date. Nonetheless, the long term environmental concerns deserve continuedmonitoring because of the newness and the novel nature of genetic transformationtechnology. The main concerns voiced are whether insect resistance to the Bt gene willdevelop, and whether gene flow to landraces and to related plant species will have anegative effect on biodiversity or to problems controlling noxious weeds.The use of GMOs has delivered large benefits to many farmers in the NSam region,but one of the most striking aspects of the experience has been the concentration ofGMO use to two traits and four major commercial crops in a few countries. Bt cotton andRR soybeans have been deployed to most of the main growing areas in Nsam. Bt maizeand RR varieties of maize and cotton however have been limited to the USA, Canada andArgentina. And no commercial GMO applications developed specifically to addressproblems of tropical agriculture here have yet appeared. The delivery of GMOshas also been concentrated in the hands of a few providers. All GMOs have been basedon genetic events that are the property of multinational corporations. Many importantpolicy questions will have to be addressed over the coming years if the benefits ofbiotechnology are to reach small farmers and growers of minor crops (Pingali andTraxler, 2002).At present all GMOs in use are the result of technology spillovers from theUS commercial seed market. With the exception of a few events in China, all GMOsgrown commercially anywhere in the world are derived from events developed forUS or Canadian markets. The private sector agricultural biotechnology investments of thepast 25 years were made with the one of these markets in mind. 7 NSam contains five ofthe 14 largest seed markets (Table 7). The combined seed market in these countries ismore than $9 billion. NSam countries have also been ahead of countries in other regionsto put biosafety committees in place. Four of the first five countries to approve events forcommercialisation are located in NSam (USA, Canada, Mexico and Argentina), followedby Brazil in 1998. This reflects both the presence of public sector scientific capacityto perform the biosafety assessment, and a degree of political and social willingness toaccept biotechnology – factors that many countries still struggle with. The many smallcountries of the hemisphere are severely disadvantaged with respect to their ability toattract investments in their seed markets, and with marshalling the scientific talent neededto staff a national biosafety committee.The factors that have not been important are as interesting to consider as the factorsthat have been important. With the exception of canola in Canada, public sector scientificdiscoveries were not a part of the technology development phase of GMOs. Public sectorscientific contributions occurred far upstream, or were missing altogether. Paraguay is astriking example. In 2005 it had the sixth largest GMO area in the world, yet it has nobiotechnology research capacity. Secondly, GMO use in Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentinahas occurred with limited or no ability to protect the intellectual property of technology